5850 Sapphire or 5850 XFX ?

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dig314

n00b
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Oct 13, 2009
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I know XFX has a double lifetime warranty. Where Sapphire is only 2 years - - plus you have to pay for shipping / administrative fee.

Warranty isn't everything.

Which company is better ? Which company has better driver support ?

Dig
 
Drivers support is the same as they both use reference drivers. So really what makes the difference is the warranty/customer service. Which XFX wins by a land slide when you compare them to sapphire.
 
If you don't have a personal preference already, just go with the cheapest. The cards will have the same performance and driver support. But, if you do have bad luck with breaking hardware, then XFX's warranty and RMA process might come into play.
 
SicKlown42012 said:
If you don't have a personal preference already, just go with the cheapest. The cards will have the same performance and driver support. But, if you do have bad luck with breaking hardware, then XFX's warranty and RMA process might come into play.
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Theoretically it should be rare for a video card to die. That said, I've noticed an awful lot of people selling cards that are "fresh from RMA" and the like. Not sure what's up with that, but I suspect with so many people here that choose to overclock they are having instabilities that they attribute to the video card.

The only video card I've owned that just died was a PNY 6800GT back in 2004. I paid around $400 for it, maybe a bit less, but I was the second owner and PNY wouldn't do a thing for me since I couldn't provide a receipt.

I agree that the cards are largely identical, but some companies have way better customer service when it comes to honoring warranties and due to the fact that high end GPUs aren't cheap I normally give that fact a lot of consideration when purchasing. I've read a few accounts of Sapphire's support leaving much to be desired, and that would be enough to make me go with XFX even if I had to pay a bit more. The double lifetime warranty might even provide slightly higher resale value, since the next owner knows they're covered should anything happen to the card.

The idea of a lifetime warranty sounds nice, but I value the quality of support more than the length of the warranty. Should something go wrong with the card, it's much nicer to be issued a hassle-free RMA and quick turnaround time vs. exchanging emails for days while they have you perform troubleshooting steps. It's very rare for me to keep a video card for more than 2 years, so a 24 month warranty is adequate for me but I'll choose a card from a manufacturer that is reputed to have excellent customer service as opposed to simply buying the cheapest every time.
 
Support the company that supports you back.

If they don't give a crap about their customers, why should you give them your money when you have the choice?
 
Every sapphire card I have ever had has failed prematurely. They have then refused to even let me RMA it.

I would never buy another sapphire card again unless it was so cheap that I could consider it entirely disposable.

I'm in the process of trying to Acquire an XFX 5870. I have never owned an XFX card before, but they have to be better than sapphire.
 
I've used both Sapphire and XFX products.

I now have a Sapphire 5850 and it has been working great. I also used to have a Sapphire 9550 Pro that I used to OC all the time. One day the card started artifacting. Cost me $15 and a months wait, but I got a 9800 XT in return! :)

I've RMAd with XFX and they are much faster than Sapphire, thats for sure.
 
I'd go XFX. I had the xfx 5850 and now, the xfx 5870. Both are great performers. Love the lifetime warranty and transferrable warranty.
 
Funny, but others seem to have issues with XFX lately. PCB issues and quality control. The price is lowest currently on the Sapphire.
 
lgestle said:
Drivers support is the same as they both use reference drivers. So really what makes the difference is the warranty/customer service. Which XFX wins by a land slide when you compare them to sapphire.
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This. /thread
 
XFX. If nothing goes wrong, it won't matter. If something does go wrong, you don't want to deal with Sapphire. And even if you hate it, it will sell for more.
 
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I went with an XFX 5850 due to the double lifetime/transferrable warranty.

Hopefully I'll never have reason to RMA the card.

FWIW, I've noticed a LOT more horror stories about Sapphire's customer service/warranty compared to XFX, but that may be due to the greater amount of cards that Sapphire sells.
 
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This topic reminded me of the debate to buy ext. warranty for the new vehicle or not.

XFX: life time warranty = extended warranty after 2 years of usage (cost $30 more)
 
i stopped overclocking my video cards about 4 or 5 years ago, and havent had to rma one since. i also stopped using 3rd party cooling on them and doing mods (soft, never any soldering or wires). so either by coincidence the quality assurance dept's of the vid card companies i used got a hell of a lot better, or the tiny performance gains you get by overclocking your vid card are really not worth the grief, toenail biting and the turnover time of an rma. so dont worry about the warranty. i have had 3 or 4 sapphire cards in the last 2 years and they all worked great. on the other hand i have also been reading (this is not from hands on experience) that xfx cards are the extreme low end as far as nvidia cards (not sure about ati) go, ie made with the cheapest components and are prone to breaking.
 
vanilla_guerilla said:
i stopped overclocking my video cards about 4 or 5 years ago, and havent had to rma one since. i also stopped using 3rd party cooling on them and doing mods (soft, never any soldering or wires). so either by coincidence the quality assurance dept's of the vid card companies i used got a hell of a lot better, or the tiny performance gains you get by overclocking your vid card are really not worth the grief, toenail biting and the turnover time of an rma. so dont worry about the warranty. i have had 3 or 4 sapphire cards in the last 2 years and they all worked great. on the other hand i have also been reading (this is not from hands on experience) that xfx cards are the extreme low end as far as nvidia cards (not sure about ati) go, ie made with the cheapest components and are prone to breaking.
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Doesn't make sense that you'd have the best warranty in the business, then use the cheapest parts. On the other hand, my first two XFX cards were 5750s and neither one would post on my system. I figure it's more an issue of the card than the manufacturer, though.
 
yossarian said:
Doesn't make sense that you'd have the best warranty in the business, then use the cheapest parts.
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Have you seen XFX's stock-clocked 4890's? Truly a horror to behold. Very many of them are incapable of overclocking by as little as 10MHz, which is simply horrifying for a 4890. Some are unstable and even overheat at the factory clocks, and many of them underperform by a good margin (>10%) compared to a reference 4890. The non-reference PCBs of these 4890s are loaded with low-quality components. (The model I speak of is the HD-489A-ZDFC w/ black PCB and dual 6-pin, though I wouldn't be surprised if this example of piss-poor quality extended to their other 4890 versions.)

EDIT: Links to some interesting threads related to this abysmal quality for your reading pleasure:
http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=102461
http://www.overclock.net/ati/572033-my-xfx-4890-reference-design-not.html

Rant aside, XFX's 5850's seem to be solid, but I don't trust them to not cheap out on their less pricey and/or non-reference cards.
 
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